


i have written you down (you will live forever)

by thescrewtapedemos



Series: if heaven will have us [1]
Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Graphic Depictions of Illness, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5936788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are worse things than the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i have written you down (you will live forever)

**Author's Note:**

> 'let's write a short lil zombie au major character death ficlet it'll be fun' 10K LATER. oh well. title from poet by bastille.  
> enjoy xoxo

They’re not the only ones left alive but lately it’s started to feel that way.

//

Porter’s gotten pretty good with his baseball bat. Knows the right angles to strike to cave in rotting skulls, to break limbs, to knock over the taller ones to deliver a killing blow. It’s almost not bad anymore, the sick wet thump of metal into rotting meat. He’s almost stopped noticing.

He’s lucky. He has Anton and his gun, a police-issue handgun of some kind, and a backpack full of looted ammunition. He doesn’t fire it often, an effort at conservation, but it’s there as a kind of insurance. And Dillon too, with another baseball bat. They about manage, could maybe keep doing this indefinitely if they don’t get cornered by a big hoard, if they don’t get trapped in close quarters, if they don’t get separated. 

If, if, if. 

He wonders if the plague’s spread to other continents. America is lost, he knows that much, and the radios are all out of batteries. No news, and he doubts that’s good news. He wonders about Japan. About France. 

“Porter, let’s go,” Anton hisses at him and beckons him on. Porter jolts and pushes himself up from his haunches, pressing his palms into damp pavement and snatching up his bat. 

They have to keep moving.

//

He’s not sure why they’re moving, exactly. There are more reasons to go than to stay, he supposes. Resources, safety. The dead congregate in the cities, funneling between the shining metal walls, bubbling up from beneath the pavement, spilling from the buildings like a rotting sea. In Las Vegas, in the days before when they couldn’t do anything but hold on to each other and hide, the smell of purification and meat had been a constant, phantom companion.

The stretches between the cities are both better and worse, and Porter hoists his backpack higher on his shoulders. The road they’re on is deserted, a backroad way because the highways are all choked with cars. The cars, in turn, full of the dead. It’s safer to go by the backroads even when the dust is blinding and Porter gets rocks in his goddamn shoes. 

He hates walking. 

“Hold up,” he calls quietly to Anton and Dillon ahead of him and drops unceremoniously to the ground, prying at his shoe. “There’s a rock in my fucking shoe.” 

Dillon laughs at him but they walk back anyway. Anton stands over them, watching the scant trees around them warily. They haven't seen any dead all day but the smell on the breeze is sour and they all know better than to let down their guards now. Dillon drops into a lazy crouch next to him and watches the trees too, slower. He looks more tired than either of them. 

Quiet descends except for the scuffle of his struggle with his goddamn shoe and Dillon’s breathing in his ear. It’s so quiet, now, in the end of the world. Quiet in a way that stifles conversation, because noise is dangerous. Porter still isn’t used to it. Doesn’t know if there’s any amount of time that would make him used to it. 

The rock rolls out of his shoe and hits the dust and Porter yanks his shoe back on, swearing at it under his breath. Anton snorts this time, sparing him a glance and a nudge with his toe. 

“Let’s get moving,” Dillon says and slaps the dirt as he stands. The dust billows around them and he has to muffle a dry, dainty little cough in his elbow that has Porter laughing at him this time. Anton nudges him on with a friendly shove and they start walking again.

//

They clear a farmhouse – only one of the dead, it had probably once been an elderly woman, it barely moves before Dillon’s crushing its head. They drag a dresser in front of the door to the room it’d been in and leave it.

Once upon a time, in the beginning, Porter had buried one of them. The first one he’d killed, one of the first of the dead he'd ever seen. He’d spent hours on the shallow grave, face hot with tears and exertion. He’d barely had the energy to roll the corpse into the hole and scrape the earth back over it. A waste, but he can’t bring himself to regret it. 

There’s no time or energy left for things like that anymore. 

They prop another dresser in front of the front door and retreat to the second floor. Dillon and Anton drag a bedframe across the top of the stairs and Porter breaks the windows over the porch roof as quietly as he can. An escape route; they’ve done this before, been trapped in houses just like this. 

“Think we’re good,” he whispers to Dillon when he comes in after him and Dillon nods. He looks tired still, leans against the wall and stares out the window at the sunset for a long moment before Anton follows him in and touches his shoulder. 

“Food,” Anton declares and drops his bag to thump onto the dirty carpet. Dillon shakes off whatever he’d been thinking about and flops down on the ground next to it, grinning wide enough to make him look almost like his old self. 

“Fuck, yes,” he cheers quietly and pumps a tired fist into the air. “What’s for dinner, chef?” 

Dinner is a sleeve of crackers and protein bar each, portioned out and eaten in relative silence. It’s comfortable in a way. Exhaustion and assurance that they are alive. Anton’s developed the habit of reaching out and touching someone every few minutes, a casual brush of fingertips on skin, almost thoughtless. It startles Dillon every time. Porter’s started turning into it, expecting it. 

He nudges Anton back this time, a shared battered smile and then returning to their food. Dillon’s already done, eyes closed, breathing rapid and too harsh to be asleep. 

“Who’s taking first watch?” he asks when they’re all about done. He doesn’t open his eyes to say it. The skin around them looks bruised with exhaustion, dark and tender. 

“I will,” Porter volunteers because Anton’s got shadows under his eyes too, deep and dark. He wants to reach out and cover them with a thumb, just to see if he still looks the same underneath them. 

“Thanks,” Anton sighs and flops over onto his back for a moment. His hand falls against Dillon’s shoulder, almost casual enough to be an accident. 

Porter watches them for a long moment. Lets the silence settle in over them, thick and comforting. It’s not true silence; wind through the trees outside, the creaking settle of the house around them, their own breathing. 

Eventually Anton heaves himself to his feet and tugs Dillon to his, drags him out into the hall. They come back a few moments later with the mattress, slap it noisily to the ground. Anton topples back onto it with a groan and Dillon follows him a moment later, falling crosswise and landing on Anton’s stomach. 

They wrestle for a moment, muffled laughter before settling, dragging a ragged blanket over themselves and quieting. Porter pulls the dusty hulk of an old armchair out of the corner and sets it next to the broken window. He can see out across the front lawn like this, the unkempt weeds, the road down the hill. There’s nothing moving. If there are any dead out there they haven’t caught wind of this hiding place yet.

//

He’s gotten better at judging the length of the night and he wakes Anton when the moon’s begun to set towards the horizon. They don’t speak but Anton wraps a sleep-warm hand around the back of Porter’s neck and pulls him forward for a moment, resting their foreheads together and breathing the same air.

He’s up a moment later, holding the corner of the blanket out courteously and shimmying out of Dillon’s clinging hold. Porter slips right into his warm spot and settles in as best he can without waking Dillon, watching Anton fall into his chair and stare out the window. 

Moonlight silvers his face, turns his profile into a molten knife’s-edge. His eyes are shining. He looks like a statue, Grecian and tragic. 

Dillon snuffles softly and reaches out, slides a sleeping arm around Porter and pulls him closer. It’s warm and Porter closes his eyes. Tries to relax enough to sleep. It’s hard sometimes, the dead pressing into his psyche like they do against the makeshift barriers they have to put up sometimes just to snatch an hour’s rest. Tonight it’s quiet, though. 

He slips sideways into sleep, Dillon’s breath hot on the back of his neck.

//

“Where are we going from here?” Porter asks idly. They’re in Steamboat Springs, too small to call a city, mostly deserted, population dead or gone or both. Sneaking from shadow to shadow between the buildings in search of supplies. There’s not enough dead to form a horde, not really, but enough to kill them if they draw too much attention.

There’s a moan on the breeze, far off and not dangerous enough yet to worry them. 

“Canada,” Dillon answers. Anton’s ahead of them in the alley, peering carefully around the corner, checking if it’s safe to cross the street. He waves them on and they jog to catch up, cross the street with muffled, slow movements because the dead can hear so much better than they can see. There’s a cluster of them at the end of the road, bloated and ungainly, shuffling motions in no particular direction. 

Porter watches them for a long moment before following Dillon into the mouth of a new alley. 

“Why Canada?” he asks quietly. 

“Joel,” Dillon replies and then laughs silently at the look on Porter’s face. “He’s got an anti-tank gun, c’mon. Can you think of anyone better prepared for a fucking zombie apocalypse?” 

Porter grumbles softly but follows them further down the alley. It’s not like Dillon’s wrong.

//

Dinner this time is canned peaches, a week past their use-by date but smelling alright when Anton cracks them open with their hand-held can opener.

They taste delicious and Porter dips them out with his bare hands, mindless of the dirt under his nails. He’s had worse things in his mouth, his own blood, the blood of people he doesn’t even know. Peaches in sweet syrup, shockingly yellow-orange against his dirty pink skin, that’s nothing. 

He sucks the syrup greedily from his fingers when he’s done and waits for the others to finish. 

Anton is drinking his soup slowly from the can, watching the window blankly. The shadows under his eyes look better for now. For a moment Porter almost thinks he looks like his old self but it’s a lie. They’re all too dirty, too skinny, long hair and ripped clothing and bloodstains. Anton’s gun in its holster on his belt. The grimy bandanna holding his shaggy hair back. 

Porter looks away before the hard, ugly kernel of homesickness in his chest can turn sick and rotten. 

Dillon’s poking through his box of crackers moodily, frowning down at them. His bat’s leaning against his side, scratched metal gleaming. 

“What’s up?” Porter asks quietly. Dillon looks up and shrugs, an exhausted motion. 

“I fucking hate Ritz crackers,” he says at last and laughs. Before Porter can ask he’s stuffing a handful of crackers into his mouth and chewing determinedly. Porter snorts and looks away. 

In the dull silence Dillon starts to cough and it’s too loud. 

They’re safe, mostly, too far away from a city for there to be more than a few of the dead around, but it’s still dangerous. And Dillon’s not stopping, surprised noises that he muffles after the first until his shoulders settle. 

Anton’s on his feet when Porter tears his eyes away to look, staring out the window tensely. After a long minute he relaxes and glances their way with a shake of his head. They hadn’t, by some miracle, been heard. 

“Jesus, what the fuck?” Porter hisses at Dillon, who looks suitably contrite. 

“I, uh…” Dillon says and his face is too sweaty and flushed to tell but Porter thinks he may be blushing. “Sorry?” 

There's a beat.

“Oh my god,” Anton says and giggles. It’s a surprising sound, cuts through the thick tension of the room so sweetly.

//

The nights are cold.

Porter hadn’t expected that, in the beginning. Hadn’t even known how much of his life was temperature regulated. Now, with no electricity, blankets too heavy to bring with them most of the time, it’s freezing. Too cold to sleep separately. Too cold to do anything but accept the offer of shared body heat greedily. 

It’s best when they can all sleep together, when they feel safe enough to let off mounting a watch, or at least can curl up around the person left awake. It’s usually Anton, too anxious to sleep. It would make Porter feel bad, if he had the energy to do anything but drop off gratefully. 

He misses coffee. Misses hot drinks and lazy mornings neither the slow grind of endless walking nor the rabbit-quick pound of panic in his chest and running, running, running. 

Lucky, the dead are so slow. They’re so lucky. 

He presses his cold nose into Anton's shirt and is asleep a moment after he closes his eyes.

//

They find North Platte and Dillon swears they’re on the right track.

Porter hadn’t bothered keeping track of where they are and where they’re going. That’s Dillon’s job, plotting the journey, like checking ahead of them is Anton’s. Porter isn’t… sure what his job is, how he fits in. He watches. He takes the late watches when Anton’s tense anxiety runs out, watches the dead for signs they’re noticed, watch the other two for signs they need to stop and rest. 

It’s slow going, in any case. Back ways, working their way across alleys and rooftops and through connected buildings. Up is better, when they can swing it. Down, on the pavement, that’s more dangerous. There are dead in the sewers, dead in the subways, dead in the basements where their families had locked them before leaving or dying themselves. Reaching up with bone fingers, reaching and reaching and reaching. 

Up is better. 

They’re settled in a low apartment building, something with flashing broken windows and doors hanging on loose hinges. Less dangerous than the locked quarantine buildings, with their threat that the dead might not have found their way out yet. Safe enough, if they’re silent. Their floor and the one below is clear, and the furniture barricade in the stairwell blocks off the shuffling dead in the floor above. Safe enough to stop for lunch and a rest. 

“I hate cities,” Anton grumbles. 

He’s by the door, gun across his lap. Relaxed but ready. Porter’s by the window, leaning against the wall and watching the dead move in slow, winding circles. He’s wondered about that. Why they keep moving even when there’s no reason to. 

“We need medicine, bitch,” Dillon says from the floor. His voice is muffled and when Porter glances over he discovers it’s because Dillon’s face down in dusty carpet. As he watches Dillon lifts a hand, limp and tired, and waves it before letting it drop again. Porter turns away with a snort to idly watch the dead again. 

“Maybe if _someone_ didn’t keep getting blisters we wouldn’t be running out of gauze,” Anton taunts. Porter hears Dillon inhale against the carpet, sharp and deep, about to retort. 

He coughs. 

And doesn’t stop coughing. 

The noise is… 

It’s awful, shockingly awful and Porter looks over because he hadn’t _expected-_ It’s too loud, damp and ripping and from deep in the lungs. Dillon’s on his side, Porter sees before he’s spinning back to the window. Hands pressed over his mouth and not enough. His eyes are wet, he sees, dark and scared and pained. 

Even trying to muffle it in his sleeve it’s too loud and Porter watches heads come up in the street, shuffling feet turning their way. The coughing still doesn’t stop, drawn out and tearing. When Porter glances back desperately Anton’s hovering over him, hands fluttering uselessly over Dillon’s bent shoulders as if they can do a single fucking thing. 

It’s less than a minute before Dillon’s quieted down to near-silent tremors, convulsive shakes of his shoulders that look painful, but it’s not soon enough. The dead are coming, slow and inquisitive. The moan is rising on the breeze.

“We have to go,” Porter says, barely concerned with volume now. Anton looks from him to Dillon, hunched over on the floor, expression desperate. 

Dillon struggles up to his feet. His face is flushed, pale around the edges, unhealthy-looking, but he’s standing. 

“We gotta,” he says raggedly and starts for the door. Anton follows a half-step behind, hoisting both backpacks over his shoulders. Even from half a room away Porter can hear Dillon’s breathing, labored and thick like he’s breathing through cotton. 

He spares a glance for the gathering dead outside. They’re staring up, those that aren’t already pounding on the door. He can meet their dead, rotting eyes.

//

“You’re sick,” Anton says when they’ve finally gotten away, lost the horde in the maze of buildings and found a little nest by the edge of an empty freeway to stop in. They’re exhausted after hours of running, all of them, but Dillon doesn’t even try to stand. He’s propped himself up against the wall, arms around his knees, looking wrecked and small in a way that makes panic curdle in Porter’s ribcage.

Anton won’t sit down. He’s pacing, back and forth, a worn path in dusty carpet. He can’t look at Dillon, eyes on his shaking hands instead. Dillon watches him do it, eyes glazed and sad. 

“Yeah,” Dillon says at last. Anton turns towards him but still doesn’t look up. 

“Are you fucking bitten?” he demands at last, low and harsh. Porter flinches because he hadn’t even _thought_ …

“I fucking wouldn’t,” Dillon responds, vehement and too loud, voice hoarse and rough. He coughs at the end, a nasty bubbling sound. Anton exhales at last, shoulders slumping. He looks defeated. 

“Dillon,” he says and it sounds almost like he wants to say something more but he turns away instead, towards the door. “I’ll be back,” he directs to Porter and then he’s gone. The door clicks shut on silence. 

It takes Porter a moment to look over, fear clinging sticky and cold to his ribcage. 

Dillon’s got his head down on his knees, shoulders hunched and loose with exhaustion. He coughs once, a badly muffled hacking noise. It makes Porter’s chest ache in sympathy. 

When Porter thumps down to sit next to him Dillon looks up. He looks lost, glazed with exhaustion and sickness. Porter doesn’t know how he’d missed it. Missed the symptoms, the badly hidden signs that Dillon’s body is giving out underneath him. 

“I didn’t want…” Dillon begins. His voice is ragged. Porter waits for him to finish his sentence but he doesn’t for a long time, just rubs his hands in jerking, restless motions up and down his legs. 

“I didn’t want you all to leave me behind,” he finishes at last with a little laugh that Porter’s pretty sure is supposed to be funny. It’s not funny. It’s not even fucking close. 

“We wouldn’t, what the fuck,” he says, impulsive and too loud. When he pulls back to look Dillon’s watching him with dull disbelief that makes the ache in his chest blossom sharper and sharper. 

“You should,” he says. 

“We wouldn’t,” Porter repeats. Dillon blinks at him, slow and tired. 

“Yeah,” he says at last and looks at the door. “I can fucking see that.” 

“He’s coming back,” Porter snaps back, too loud again. Dillon doesn’t shush him though. Just scrubs a hand through long, filthy hair and doesn’t look at him. He keeps not looking until Porter grabs his hand, lacing their fingers together too tight. His hand is too hot, Porter notes. He’s running feverishly warm; Porter doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed. 

His eyes focus when Porter meets them. They’re sharp and anguished but present. 

“He’s coming back,” Porter repeats with absolute conviction. Anton will come back. 

“Okay,” Dillon says, not like he believes Porter but like he’s too tired to argue. Instead he rests his head hesitantly on Porter’s shoulder and stays there. Fitful, difficult breathing brushing against Porter’s neck. It is, in its own way, reassuring. 

The sunlight coming through the window turns warm and dim, sunset colors. He rouses himself at last. They have to sleep, more than just fitful moments sitting against the wall. They can’t leave either, not until Anton comes back. Which he will. Porter has faith. 

Dillon jolts when Porter starts moving carefully, a pained noise of confusion and then quiet. 

“Help me drag the mattress in here?” Porter asks. Dillon nods his agreement and heaves himself to his feet. 

Dillon’s still fever-hot when they finally manage to wrestle the mattress through the doorway and settle in for the night, though he pulls away when Porter reaches out hesitantly. Porter leaves him at that. They found a few blankets too, enough to make it almost tropical under them all. They’re rarely truly warm when they sleep these days. 

He falls asleep that way, though he doesn’t mean to. He means to stay awake, to keep watch for the dead or for Anton. It’s just so warm. It’s warm and Dillon isn't wrapped around him like he usually is but it still feels so safe. He drifts off anyway. 

He comes awake dimly at the sound of the door quietly opening and closing, Dillon jolting and pulling away from Porter’s back to sit up. 

“’Ton,” Dillon says, voice sleep-rough and jagged. 

“I’m sorry,” and it’s Anton’s voice, dragging Porter further out of sleep. “I shouldn’t have, I just couldn’t…” 

His voice trails off and there’s movement, a dip in the mattress jolting Porter sideways and into full wakefulness. It’s dark, he realizes, opening his eyes. The dark of the end of the world, only the faint light of the moon through the window highlighting the edges of the room. Enough, barely, to make out Anton and Dillon wrapped around each other. 

The curved bow of Anton’s spine, bent where he’s kneeling over Dillon. The curve of Dillon, up to meet him. The dark tangle of limbs and their heads bent together, so close Porter can’t make out their features. Dillon’s breathing is so harsh and broken Porter could almost mistake it for crying. 

They’re shaking, Porter realizes, hard enough to shake the mattress a little. 

Anton turns to look at him when he sits up, eyes flashing in the moonlight. He opens an arm easily when Porter moves closer, welcomes him in. 

The embrace is warm, Dillon turning blindly to tuck his face into the gap between them, Anton’s hand finding its way into his hair and lacing tight. It’s good, better than good. He closes his eyes and lets it happen, lets it keep happening. 

Eventually they slip sideways, Dillon flailing out a blind hand and dragging a blanket over them. They stay that way all night, fitful sleep and reaching out to touch each other. Dillon in the middle, putting out too much heat. Porter on one side, back to the wall, hand locked in Anton’s shirt. Anton’s hand stays in his hair, his other hand Porter can feel white-knuckled around the back of Dillon’s neck.

//

“You can’t do that again,” Porter mumbles sometime in the early, early morning. Dillon’s asleep, hot and struggling breathing against his shoulder. “You can’t fucking do that.”

“I know,” Anton says and it sounds miserable. 

“You can’t,” Porter whispers. His hand tightens around Dillon and he makes a soft noise in his sleep, protest or agreement. 

“I won’t,” Anton whispers back and his fingers nudge against Porter’s sternum.

//

The sun begins to rise and they settle into exhausted sleep. Somehow the dead haven’t found them yet, for everything that’s happened. It feels almost like an omen and Porter doesn’t trust it but he also doesn’t question it.

They eat silently. Dillon between them, still putting out too much heat, not protesting when Porter hands him extra food. He eats it without a word and startles when Anton's fingers brush over his wrist.

He's so exhausted his eyes look bruised but he refuses to let Anton or Porter lighten his backpack. 

“I fucking did it before,” he argues in an undertone. “And I’ll do it again, bitch, watch me!” 

He manages, too, all the way down the stairs and out the side door into the alley they’d fled through the day before. On shaky but determined legs, Porter keeping more than half an eye on him for if he falls. He really does seem okay. 

Cautiously Porter lets himself hope, turning to follow Anton deeper into the maze of the city, that for today at least none of them will die.

//

The hospital dispensary has painkillers and antibiotics and more medication than they could carry even if they felt like risking the sound of an engine for a car. Porter stares down the rows and rows of shelving, endless bottles of pills, and feels dizzy.

There aren’t many dead left in the dark, institutional halls. Most of those are chained to their beds, rattling police-issue handcuffs and mournful, echoing moaning. It’s far from the most dangerous place they’ve been. Dillon’s keeping watch in the hall, leaning easily on his bat. 

“He seems better,” Porter whispers. Anton shrugs unhappily. The corners of his mouth are turned down, miserable and pinched. 

“I don’t trust it,” he confesses back in an undertone and reaches out to grab a transparent orange bottle. The label is gibberish when Porter peers over his shoulder. He doesn’t know what the words mean, which ones they need for Dillon. 

They’re in the same room as what Dillon needs, Porter’s sure of it, and none of them know what that is. 

Anton pauses for a moment and his grip on the orange plastic goes white-knuckled. The tiny blue pills inside rattle faintly, and then he’s sighing and letting them fall to the tile with a clatter. 

“Painkillers and cold medication I guess,” Anton says, exhausted, and starts poking through the gathered bottles.

//

They leave North Platte. Dillon seems to breathe easier in the countryside, seems to muffle his coughing with less effort. The painkillers seem to help and they don’t even take up much room, easily tucked into pockets and muffled with cotton balls.

“I’ve got a fucking rock in my shoe,” Dillon says suddenly. 

Porter laughs and crouches next to him, eyes on the trees and tall grass around them. The déjà vu is strong enough to choke.

//

Porter spots the smoke rising on the horizon first.

It’s a thin line, not the black billow of an industrial fire or the grey smudges of one of the long-burning cities. Something that might mean people. Might mean hope of a safe place to rest, a dry and warm place to sleep, maybe even someone to look at Dillon and tell them what to do. 

Dillon’s alright, mostly, aside from the fatigue and cough. Not any better but he’s moving, refuses to complain. 

The compound they find is fenced in, a long stretch of green grass and a tall barn in the distance. There are none of the dead around the fence and Porter wonders idly how they managed that. 

There are people. 

Not many and when they spot the trio approaching they run to the main building, but Porter's heart beats faster anyway. _People_. God, he hasn't seen people in so long. 

“Is this a good idea?” Dillon asks under his breath. He's feverish again, eyes madly bright and hair limp with sweat. 

“Not our worst,” Anton says with an ambiguous gesture. 

“Can't hurt,” Porter agrees and Dillon sighs, shrugs, leans on his bat heavily. He looks exhausted as well as sick. Porter aches to reach out and help him, prop him up, but it's just not a good idea to show that weakness yet.

Eventually a woman emerges, tall and carrying a rifle on one shoulder with deadly assurance. She walks towards where they're waiting by the gate with confidence, stops right by the gate and unshoulders her gun. 

She levels it right at Anton and Porter flinches, just once. He hopes, more than anything, they're not making a mistake. 

“Hi,” Anton says cautiously and steps forward, extending both empty handed towards her so she can see he's not holding a weapon. Porter keeps his bat in hand but holds it by his side, as unthreatening as he can. 

The woman doesn’t step out to meet them, just aims the rifle more squarely at Anton’s face and squints. 

“So,” she says. It’s not unfriendly, just cautious. “What brings you all here?”

“We're from Vegas,” Anton says and thumbs back towards the road. “Heading to Toronto to look for a friend. Saw the smoke and hoped you might let us stay for a few days. We have some supplies, just looking for a safer place to sleep.” 

The woman grunts and then nods once, lowering her weapon to point at the ground by her side. 

“Your names?” she asks. It sounds marginally more friendly. 

“Anton,” Anton says and then gestures to Porter and behind him to Dillon. “This is Porter and Dillon.” 

Porter sees the exact moment her gaze travels past him to see Dillon. The shocked look that crosses her face. Then the fear, that familiar fear. He knows that look. 

“What's wrong with him?” the woman demands and she sounds suddenly panicked. She's gesturing behind them and Porter knows if he turns to look he'll see Dillon standing there. Flushed and damp with fever sweat, leaning on his bat. Exhausted and so obviously sick.

“He's not bitten,” Anton says hastily, raising his hands higher. “He's just sick, it's not-,”

“Get out,” the woman says. 

“Wait,” Anton says desperately but the woman shakes her head, lifting her rifle again. 

“Leave,” she says and her voice is so unforgiving it puts shame to mountains. “I can't risk you being here.” 

“Please,” Porter whispers. His tongue feels numb. It feels like his whole body is floating. 

“I'm sorry,” the woman says and shakes her head once. She sounds it, too. Miserable with the weight of condemning them back to their journey. “I can't risk it. Please, go.” 

Anton tugs on his shoulder until he turns. Dillon’s walking away already, shoulders bent. Anton jogs to catch up, doesn’t look back over his shoulder once. The woman’s still watching them through the cracked door when Porter looks back. Her mouth is a line, tight and wretched, and Porter understands even though he doesn’t want to. He gets it. He does. 

He follows the other two back to the road.

//

They don’t go far. The town they'd been aiming for before isn’t far away from the compound and the tense silence follows them all the way to a ramshackle house on the edge of town, little but with a nice porch roof they could jump down off of if they need a quick getaway.

They clear it in silence, still. There are three of the dead, two bloated adults as tall as Dillon and a child, a head of long blonde hair perched over a face more teeth than any remaining flesh. Porter crushes its skull into the floorboards and nudges it for a few moments to make sure it’s truly dead. Anton’s pushing an old set of shelves across the front door, the loudest noise except the thud and crunch of breaking bone from the other room as Dillon finishes the last of the dead. 

Anton takes the lead up the stairs and into the room above the porch. It’s almost dark out but he goes to the window anyway, arms crossed over his chest, staring fierce and angry. Dillon follows Porter in, carefully wiping brown, gluey residue from his bat with a scrap of window curtain. He won’t look at either of them, just throws the rag into the corner before the bile can soak through and onto his hands. 

“We’re safe,” Porter hazards when it becomes apparent that neither of the others are going to speak up. Anton looks at him, a brief thankful glance. Dillon leans back against the wall by the door and stares at his feet. 

“You should go back,” Dillon says. He still doesn’t look at them. 

“What do you mean,” Anton asks slowly. His tone is very careful, very thinly veiled poison. Even, despite the trembling tension Porter can sense in him. 

“I mean you should leave.” Dillon sneers at his feet. “You should go back and ask if you can get in without me, alright?”

“We’re not leaving you,” Anton replies, still that even tone and suddenly he’s halfway across the floor, too close for Dillon to avoid looking at him. Porter steps forward despite the fact he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if they fight. He has to do something. _Something_. 

“I’m gonna die, Anton!” Dillon snaps and then they all flinch. Anton falls back a step for a moment and there’s something in the white stillness of his face that makes Porter’s gut twist tighter. Fear. Anton's scared, he’s piss-scared and Porter's scared too, absolutely petrified. 

“You're not going to die,” Anton says viciously into the silence, stepping back into Dillon's space. “I won't goddamn let you.”

“Fuck you,” Dillon hisses, and Porter has time to catch that the look on his face is fear too, blank-eyed terror. Anton steps forward again, hand coming up to frame his face, hold him still. For a moment Dillon looks trapped, desperate and wild.

“I'm not going to fucking let you die,” Anton whispers fiercely and then they're kissing. 

It looks brutal, Porter can hear teeth clicking together from where he’s standing. It looks like it hurts, like Anton’s proving a point with his mouth and Dillon’s letting him. Anton’s fingers are so tight against Dillon’s cheeks Porter has to wonder if there’ll be fingernail marks later, Dillon’s hands coming up and clutching at whatever they can reach. Anton’s side, his arm. 

“You’re going to get sick, don’t-,” Dillon says when Anton pulls away for a moment to pant for breath. He sounds panicked and delirious. 

“Shut up,” Anton says and presses in again. They don’t even glance his way. 

Porter feels very alone, suddenly. Cold and very, very far away. 

He steps back, takes a half-turn even though he doesn’t know where he’s going to go. He can’t leave them – and fuck, oh, there’s something in his gut that _heaves_ at the thought – but there’s something else in him that twists tight at the thought of staying. He’s dizzy with it, knows he’ll think better out in the hall, but-

“Porter,” Anton’s voice comes and Porter looks back. 

Anton’s hand is tight in Dillon’s hair but they’re not kissing now. Anton’s staring at him instead. 

“Come here,” Anton demands. 

He’s holding out a hand, not a request but a command. His eyes are wild, deep and dark and edged with violence. Porter goes. He couldn’t not. Dillon’s taller than him, had been, but he’s curled in on himself and small with sickness and when he rests his forehead on Porter’s shoulder Porter can feel the terrifying weakness in the care he’s taking to hold himself up. 

“I’m not letting you die, I’m fucking not,” Anton hisses into Porter’s ear, pressing his fingers into the back of Dillon’s neck until he turns his head to the side to look. They stare at each other for a long moment until Dillon nods and closes his eyes again and Anton’s sharp stare turns on Porter. 

“Yeah,” Porter croaks. His voice is cracking. His throat feels thick, like there’s a lump in it, like he’s about to cry. 

He digs his fingers harder into Dillon’s back and holds on.

//

They pass through the town, scavenge supplies, keep going. Dillon is slower but still moving, still putting one dogged foot in front of the other.

They don’t let him take watch. It’s a token of how ground-down and exhausted he must feel that he doesn’t argue. Just wraps himself around whoever’s not taking watch and falls into fitful sleep he doesn’t wake easy from. 

When it’s Porter’s turn to sleep first he tries not to hear the bubbling wheeze deep in Dillon’s chest when he breathes. When it's Anton's he just... tries not to hear their muttering, the sound of kisses. He takes first watch a lot. 

Anton glances over at Porter sometimes, when Dillon falls asleep first. Exchanging scared glances but no words. They wouldn’t help.

//

“So what do you miss?” Dillon asks.

It’s late afternoon, almost evening, rosy warm sunlight pouring through the windows. They stopped here because it’s convenient and there weren’t any other buildings they could see to shelter in but this farmhouse. It’d been empty. Not a single one of the dead. Not even the truly dead. Not a sign of the owners. Almost ideal. 

They play this game sometimes, when one of them is feeling nostalgic. The ‘what do you miss’ game. 

“Mmm,” says Anton from the armchair he’d dragged to the window. He’s watching out of it lazily, more from habit that anxiety. They’re miles and miles from any city, haven't seen any dead since the day before. “Juice. Cold juice. I miss that.” 

“Nice,” Dillon says appreciatively and drums his fists against the mattress he’s sprawled on. “Fuck, I miss brownies. Nice, fresh-baked brownies. Not even pot brownies just, like, you know. Holy shit. Chocolate.” 

Anton makes a pained, hungry noise from his side of the room and then turns his head expectantly to where Porter’s camped out in his own little patch of floor. 

“I,” Porter says tiredly and then pauses. He’s having trouble thinking. This isn’t his favorite game. “Shows, I guess. People. I miss touching people like that, y’know?” 

There’s a brief silence and he looks up from his knees to see Dillon watching him. 

His eyes are calculating, a little distant. Like this, in the glowing afternoon sunlight, he looks healthy. 

“New game,” he announces suddenly and Anton laughs from his chair-throne. “Truth or dare, bitches.” 

“No,” Porter groans but Dillon’s smiling and Anton’s giggling still and he caves with a huff, shrugging and leaning forward. “Fuck you, fine.” 

“Who’s going first?” Anton asks lazily and pulls his feet up to rest dirty sneakers on the dusty upholstery. 

“Porter went last, Porter goes first,” Dillon declares before Porter can argue and he huffs again, a grumbling sound more for show than anything. He likes this game better than the nostalgia game. 

“Dare,” he decides. 

“Kiss me,” Dillon says and Porter stares. 

Dillon's grinning, bright and taunting like his old self. It looks brilliant, dark hair in his eyes, sprawled across the blanket like he doesn't even care what he looks like. It sounds like… like something dirty. Something from _before_ that doesn’t even hurt to hear now. 

Anton's watching when Porter glances over helplessly, smiling. His chin is propped on his arm, thrown across his knees, he looks so loose and lazy and pleased. Porter can’t breathe. 

“Go on,” Anton says, dares, when Porter’s frozen indecision wears on too long. “You gonna kiss him or not.” 

Porter stumbles to his feet, nearly trips, topples himself onto the mattress and crawls forward to hover over Dillon on his knees. Dillon laughs at him. He doesn’t care, feels the sweet anxiety rushing in his chest and it’s the only part of him that isn’t numb with shock. God, he wants to. He wants to kiss Dillon. 

Dillon reaches out and tugs gently on the ends of Porter’s hair hanging in his face. His smile is less mischief now. Soft and young. 

“You don’t _have_ to,” he says confidingly. 

“Yes you do,” Anton disagrees, quiet and laughing, and Porter makes a protesting noise at the same time. They both laugh at him this time and he feels heat rushing to his cheeks but he leans forward anyway because he does, he does want it, he wants it _so much_. 

Dillon hasn’t even bothered to try to shave, done his best with trimming when they find scissors. Porter noses at his cheek, relishes the hair tickling his lips. It’s not so different from waking up tucked together from a cold night’s sleep, barely different at all except in intent. In the way the base of Porter’s gut is tightening. 

Dillon hums for a moment, a pleased sound, and then turns his head and they’re kissing. 

His mouth is hot, lips soft and opening easily. 

It goes right through him, heat like nothing he has words for. Dillon’s hand catches him by the hip and guides him over to sit in his lap, knees bracketing his thighs. He doesn’t stop kissing, doesn’t break the smooth brush of his tongue against Porter’s bottom lip. Wet and hot. Porter can’t stop the soft noise that he makes when he opens his mouth too. He can’t concentrate on anything, a million thoughts flying apart against Dillon’s mouth, the thumb slipping under his sweater to rub against the skin over his hipbone. 

Another hand touches his side and he jumps and then Anton’s there, pressed against his back, making soothing noises. 

“We're safe,” he whispers and laughs when Porter moans. “Game’s over.” 

Dillon pulls away from his mouth with a final gentle bite that has his eyes closing involuntarily, his back arching into Anton. It’s so good. Warm and surrounded and safe. He can’t think with Dillon below and Anton above him, so much warmth and the hands on him, and he loves it. 

“You set me up,” Porter accuses dizzily and then Dillon’s kissing him again and Porter never wants him to stop, never ever again. He wants this forever, hot and blooming up in him. 

“Yeah,” Anton taunts against his shoulder. “Stop complaining and kiss me too.” 

Porter laughs, bright and free, and does.

//

“I fucking hate calling them zombies,” Porter says suddenly.

He’s haphazardly wiping old, rotten blood off his bat onto the grass. Dillon’s doing the same a few feet away, Anton between them watching the tall bushes bordering the road warily. He laughs under his breath when Porter speaks up, nodding and not pausing in his slow sweeps. 

“What else do you wanna call ‘em?” Dillon asks carelessly and props his clean bat up against his shoulder. “If it walks like a zombie, moans like a zombie, eats brains like a zombie…” 

Porter snorts and pulls his bat back, lining up and taking a swing at the brown, unrecognizable object that had once been a head. It sails across the road and into the ditch on the other side in a small shower of rot and putrefaction. 

“I don’t know,” he says when Anton and Dillon are finished mockingly applauding. “It just feels like… a movie, y’know? Zombie aren’t real.”

“Real enough to knock that one’s head a good ten feet,” Anton observes and Porter flips him off, huffing in mock frustration. 

“We could call ‘em zeds,” Dillon says sweetly and Anton wheels to point at him, a laughing warning and rolled eyes. He freezes for a moment, eyes traveling past him, and Dillon’s already in motion

“Zombie,” he snaps, and then one of the things Porter still doesn't want to call zombies topples out of the grass. Dillon’s bat connects with the thing’s head with the muffled crack of shattering bone and decayed flesh. It drops and doesn’t get back up. It hadn’t even had a chance to moan.

“Still don’t wanna call ‘em zombies,” Porter grumbles and Anton rolls his eyes, fond.

//

The rain begins as they’re approaching a town.

It’s cold rain, damp and miserable and sticky somehow. In an hour it’s soaked them through, leaving them shaking. So cold, bone-deep and aching with every gust of wind. Porter can barely keep a grip on his bat and Anton’s had to hide his gun away in his backpack to keep it dry. They’re vulnerable, terrifyingly, and it’s only sheer luck that the first house they stumble into is empty. 

Porter blocks off the doors with whatever he can find and Anton half-carries Dillon up the stairs. 

The rain hadn’t helped his fever. He’s listing heavily, bowing under his own weight. Porter tries not to watch him as he goes to check the rooms more thoroughly, just to be sure. He’s avoiding, he knows it, but it can’t hurt. 

Dillon’s shivering under every blanket in the top floor when Porter finally climbs the stairs and steps into the room hesitantly. Anton’s wrapped around him and when he sees Porter he gestures him over. Nothing about his expression says anything good.

“Help me get him warm,” he says quietly and Dillon laughs shakily, a sound that devolves into a hacking cough. 

“Yeah, Porter, come sit on Santa’s lap,” he leers tiredly when he can breathe again, his voice cracking. Porter laughs half-heartedly and throws his damp jacket into the corner, steps out of his wet jeans and climbs under the corner of blanket Dillon lifts for him. 

Dillon’s feverish again, he discovers as he settles himself into the cradle of Dillon’s lap. Putting out too much heat and shaking with a fine, terrifying tremble. Cold fingers sneak under his shirt and spread over Porter’s belly and Porter doesn’t protest. The relieved huff of air against the back of his neck makes it worth it. 

They stay there until Dillon falls asleep, until his fever shakes become more intermittent than constant. Eventually Anton pulls away, lays Dillon down and lays a careful kiss on Porter's mouth, walks away to sort out what they can salvage from the house. Even then Porter doesn't move away, stays tucked in Dillon's hold until night falls and makes the rain falling outside invisible.

//

The rain doesn’t stop falling.

“It must be October or something,” Dillon says with a shrug when Porter bitches about it. He’s not any better and it’s starting to scare him, the thick muffled wheezing in Dillon’s chest, the constant fever, the shakes. Dillon doesn’t mention it but he’s taking the painkillers more too, moves with difficulty and only when he absolutely has to. 

“It’s the rain,” Anton theorizes when he and Porter are out in the town, gathering the supplies they can carry through the rain. “Too cold and wet, not good for his lungs?” 

He’s busy with his hands but Porter doesn’t miss the tightness that crosses his mouth. 

“Probably,” Porter mumbles because he can’t disagree. He can’t stop noticing how difficult Dillon’s breathing is now. 

Anton glances through the cracked store window at the dripping rain. There’s movement in it, shuffling and slow, and Porter tightens his grip around his bat. At least the rain seems to confuse the dead, makes it easier to run away. They have that at least.

//

“I can get up,” Dillon offers from the bed. He’s got the thickest comforter pulled over his head, Porter sees when he turns around. He’d been struggling with the armchair, trying to heave it out of the room so he could toss it down the stairs to join the growing furniture barricade over the windows and doors.

“No-,” Porter begins but Dillon’s already trying to stand, struggling his way out of a tangle of blankets. Abruptly his legs buckle and he almost hits the floor before Porter’s diving forward to prop him up. 

Dillon’s shaking. Porter tries not to notice and fails abjectly. 

“Or maybe,” Dillon says breathlessly and then coughs, miserable and hacking. “Maybe I’ll go, uh, lay down?” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Porter says and helps him back to the bed.

//

“What do you miss?” Dillon asks.

It’s muffled. He’s got his face pressed into Anton’s stomach, head barely visible as a tuft of greasy hair. Porter’s beside him, Anton’s arm thrown over his chest, Dillon’s cold hand tucked under his shirt. It’s hot under the blankets but Dillon hasn’t protested yet and Porter doesn’t care if he overheats as long as Dillon’s okay. 

“Shit, I don’t know,” Anton says at last. 

“I miss hot soup,” Dillon continues, still muffled. 

_Doctors,_ Porter thinks and doesn’t say. 

“Anime,” he says instead and Anton huffs a surprised laugh in his ear. 

“Going to the movies,” Anton decides and Dillon nods, a motion Porter feels against his shoulder. 

“Popcorn,” he says and lifts his head a little bit. His grin is dazed and far away and his cheeks are white except the high, manic spots of color over his cheekbones. “Oh man, fresh bread.” 

“Cheese,” Anton puts in and Porter laughs so hard he has to sit up or choke. 

“Holy shit, Anton,” he says. Dillon lets out a sharp bark of sound, rough, the closest he can get to laughter that won’t make him cough. 

“What?” Anton asks, wounded, and Porter just laughs harder.

//

The rains clear for a while. Dillon suggests they try to move but when he gets out of bed he collapses again, joints buckling.

He doesn’t say anything and the rain begins again, thick and sticky like before.

//

Dillon wakes up one day and doesn’t recognize where he is.

They’ve been in town a week and a half, slowly working their way through their supplies and then what they can scavenge from the town. They’d run out of the hospital painkillers days ago, making due with what Anton finds and can reliably identify from the pharmacy downtown. 

Porter doesn’t realize what’s wrong for a few minutes, just holds out a water bottle to him and frowns in confusion when Dillon just stares at him and doesn’t take it. 

“Dillon?” he asks and Dillon frowns harder. 

“This isn’t Vegas,” he says in a whisper. Porter’s stomach drops what feels like all the distance to the floor. 

“No,” he says carefully when he can breathe again. “We’re in West Branch. How are you feeling?” 

Dillon makes a confused sound but he takes the water bottle and drinks it all in a long series of chugs. He’s staring out the window at the rain. 

“Like shit,” he says and Porter realizes why it feels so wrong when Dillon finally looks at him again. There’s no recognition in his face when their eyes meet. 

He falls asleep again and Porter spends a long time sitting with his back to the wall and trying to breath evenly.

//

When Dillon wakes again he knows where he is but somehow that’s worse because he doesn’t seem lucid.

Anton’s gone out looking for supplies. It’s safe enough, now, with the rain and how most of the dead have been killed in their previous forays. 

“It hurts,” Dillon mumbles into Porter’s side. Porter silently agrees even though he knows Dillon doesn’t mean it the way Porter does, is talking about whatever pain the sickness is inflicting. Porter hurts in a different way, in tight constricting bands around his chest that make it hard to breathe, that burn whenever Dillon can’t hold in a coughing fit. 

“I’m sorry,” he says helplessly instead and rubs careful fingers over Dillon’s shoulder. 

The sound of the rain against cracked glass is the only noise for a long time and then Dillon’s trying to sit up, struggling violently against the blankets. Porter doesn’t figure out when he’s doing before Dillon’s staring him in the eye, one hand vice-like around his wrist. 

“I don’t wanna die,” Dillon croaks. His eyes are wild and unfocused and dark and Porter wants to cry. The grip around his wrist is tight but shaking, trembling and freezing cold. Too bony. They need more food, better food. More, cleaner water. Sterile surroundings, somewhere warm to sleep. _Medication_. Nothing they have to give. 

“You’re not going to die,” he whispers. Dillon shakes his head. He’s looking at Porter but not really, seeing something that isn’t there. Looking through him and into something else. 

“No,” he says and Porter helps him lay down again, heart beating fluttering and painful in his throat. 

Dillon’s shaking, probably more fever chills. His forehead’s burning up when Porter brushes cautious fingertips over it but Dillon presses close into his side anyway. Helplessly Porter starts to run his fingers though Dillon’s long, sweat-matted hair. They stay there a long time, hours probably, just Dillon’s shakes coming in ebbs and flows and the mechanical motion of Porter’s fingers in his hair. 

Anton comes in later. He watches them for a long time, runs his eyes over Dillon’s sleeping face again and again and again. 

“I’m scared,” Porter says at last when the sound of Dillon’s endless labored breathing becomes too much to bear. 

Anton nods. Steps over, crawls across the tangled blankets and hovers over him for a moment. Stares at him like he’s searching for words. Nothing comes apparently because he shakes his head this time and reaches out, pulls Porter in and brushes a soft kiss against his lips. 

“Me too,” he says, soft, a hopeless confession.

//

Dillon sleeps through the sunrise, the morning, doesn’t wake until late in the afternoon. He’s semi-lucid, takes the water Anton holds out for him. Laughs at the weak jokes Porter cracks and then coughs and coughs. When he spits it’s pink.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Anton tells him, drops a kiss against his cheek. Porter brushes fever-wet hair back from his face, tries not to let the guilt burn too hot in the pit of his stomach. Dillon's eyes close and then open, close and then open. 

“I’m tired,” he mumbles at last and Anton nods, slides in on the other side to Porter and moves in as close as he can. 

They let him sleep. Don’t talk.

//

He doesn’t wake up the next morning.

//

Porter shakes Anton awake when he realizes, when he figures out that not even shaking Dillon by the shoulders is rousing him.

“He’s not,” he gulps and his eyes overflow and he’s sobbing, he’s sobbing and Anton already knows. In his rush to turn over and look he knocks Porter aside but he can’t bring himself to care. Sprawls back on his ass and cries in vast, stifled sobs that don’t pull in enough oxygen, that hurt because of how he has to muffle them even now. 

He can hear Anton’s voice even when he closes his eyes and tries not to. Insistent. Quiet begging, desperate words that descend into what must be German, mindless pleading noises. After a moment Porter has to cover his ears, pulls himself in and in until it hurts, until his knees and elbows are bright spots of pain against his abdomen. Until he can’t think over the arcing agony of that, his fingers over his ears, the breath sawing in his lungs and the ache in his throat from the trapped noise. 

He wants to scream. He can’t. 

It’s Anton’s hands on his wrists that pull him back, not gentle and not kind. Forceful, desperate, fingernails digging in until Porter whines and unfurls a little, blinks through blurry eyes at Anton’s face. 

His cheeks are wet and his eyes are red and his mouth is a line of misery. 

“ _Please_ ,” Porter says, voice shaking with tears, and he’s not sure what he’s asking for. More time, maybe. More time in the quiet, painful darkness Anton had just dragged him from. Anton shakes his head anyway. His gaze is fixed, reddened stone. 

Across the room Dillon’s breath drags. Breaks. He pulls in a gasp of air once and then doesn’t breathe again for so long that Anton’s hands tighten again around Porter’s wrists. He doesn’t protest, just listens desperately until the rattling noise begins again. 

It sounds painful. Porter wonders – distant, absent, numb – if Dillon can feel it or if he’s already gone. 

“He's not going to,” Porter begins at last, even though the words burn in his mouth. He can't finish the sentence, chokes on it instead. It doesn't matter anyway, Anton's face jerks away as if Porter had slapped him. Suddenly his eyes are closed and his lashes are wet. 

“I know,” Anton says at last and doesn't open his eyes, “I know and I said, I said.” 

His voice dies and the silence falls again, the silence that's Dillon's wet, dying breathing. Porter twists his wrists in Anton's grip until he lets go, reaches out and laces their fingers together helplessly. Anton's expression crumples, folds in on itself and more wetness leaks from his lashes. 

“I promised I wouldn't let him die,” Anton says at last. His voice breaks in the middle of his sentence. The thick, painful tightness in Porter's ribcage draws tighter. He can’t think it through, nothing but instinctive impulse and reaction. 

“We didn't leave him,” Porter forces out past numb lips. The air is shuddering in his chest, his voice choked and thin. Anton's eyes open, glassy and blank and dark. 

No,” Anton agrees slowly after a moment. Visibly he pulls himself together, draws himself up and takes a deep breath, turns towards Dillon. His back is an iron line of tension and when Porter reaches out to touch he shivers, bone-deep. 

Dillon _looks_ like he’s dying, when Porter steels himself to look. Pale to the point of grayness, clammy with drying sweat, eyelids the pale purple of exhausted bruises. His chest rises and falls in fitful jerks, irregular and struggling and sounding like each one should hurt. His wrist’s cold when Porter runs a hand over it but when he moves to press the palm of his hand to Dillon’s forehead the sheer feverish heat gives him pause. 

“He’s not,” Porter begins and has to gulp back bile, bitter and sour. “He’s not going to wake up.” 

“No,” Anton agrees softly. 

His hand creeps under Porter’s, laces their fingers tight again. When he takes a deep breath, convulsive, his grip tightens with bright flashes of pain. 

“We can’t stay here,” he says in a rush. He’s staring at Dillon when Porter looks at him. His eyes are still glassy. They don’t focus. “We can’t feed him or carry him. They’ll find us eventually too, we can’t just… just wait it out.” 

“What do we do?” Porter asks miserably. 

Anton hesitates and then looks at his backpack. Porter understands in a rush of sickness, bile tickling the back of his throat. 

“No!” he snaps thoughtlessly. Anton's face tightens, going hard. 

“What _else_ do we do?” he demands and when Porter doesn't answer he laughs, the sound cruel and ugly. It's mirthless and his eyes are wet again. “I’m not leaving him to starve and I’m not letting him get eaten. I can’t… he deserves better.” 

“Fuck,” Porter says. It comes out without the venom he means to put in. Instead it’s soft and defeated, shot through with misery. It’s not an agreement except in all the ways that it is and Anton nods, loosening his fingers. Their hands drop apart. 

“Go take his supplies outside,” he says. “Sort what we can take, alright?” 

His shoulders are tight, when Porter knuckles the blurriness from his vision. Tight and square, and he isn’t looking at Porter. He’s staring at Dillon, but unseeingly. Looking at things that aren’t even there. Porter sort of wonders what he’s seeing, isn’t sure he wants to know. 

“I can stay,” he offers even though the words fight him every inch of the way out of his mouth and Anton shakes his head. He still doesn’t look at him but his hand gropes over until it finds Porter’s knee and rests there for a moment. 

“Let me do this,” he says and somehow he’s wound even tighter into himself. 

Porter pauses for a long moment, watches the way Anton doesn’t blink and doesn’t look his way. The helplessness is thick in his throat, that he can’t do anything. The neither of them can. That this was an inevitable outcome from the beginning. Pain in his chest that’s the grief. Sharp and entrenched and he doesn’t think it’s going to leave for a long time. 

Anton lets Porter pull him in, rest their foreheads together. For a long, long moment they breathe the same air. 

Porter crawls over and pushes the hair back from Dillon’s face. He’s still under Porter’s hand, not a flicker of movement behind his eyelids or anywhere except the dragging motion of his chest. Too slow. Too labored. Porter dips and presses a kiss to his forehead and turns away before he can cry again because they don’t have the time or the luxury for it. 

Anton presses a hand against his hip when he’s gathered up the bags and Dillon’s bat and started for the door. They stare at each other for a long moment and Porter doesn’t know what Anton’s trying to say with his gaze but he doesn’t know what his own expression is saying either and eventually Anton turns away anyway. Back to looking at Dillon. 

Porter walks down the stair trying not to listen, heaves the set of shelves away from the front door trying not to listen, gives the front and side yards a cursory check still trying not to listen. It’s silent, the silence of the end of the world that’s his own breathing thick with tears and the sound of the wind in grass. Eventually he sits on the porch stairs and starts emptying Dillon’s backpack. 

There’s not a lot in it, he notes dully. Food, water bottles, painkillers in rattling orange bottles. Useless. He drops them down the stairs and watches them roll down the driveway and into the road. They twinkle cheerfully in the dull light coming through the clouds. He ignores them and mechanically continues sorting what he and Anton can carry from what they can’t. 

The gunshot comes with no fanfare or warning and Porter doesn’t recognize the noise that comes out of his own mouth. It’s animal, startled and agonized, forced out between closed teeth by the hurt in his chest. For a moment he tries to fight it because it isn’t safe but he can’t and he drops his face into his knees and cries and cries. The tears are hot and bitter and ache, still, because he can’t make noise. 

The hand that touches his shoulder doesn’t rouse him for dangerous moments but it’s just Anton when he finally lifts his head. 

He sits next to Porter and sets his own bag down, starts to put the pile of supplies Porter had made for him into it. His hands are clean, Porter notes and hates himself for noting. His face is white and still and his eyes are far away and when Porter reaches out to touch his wrist he seizes up for a moment. 

“It was the right thing,” Porter says. His voice wavers. Anton nods and still doesn’t look at him. Just keeps putting item after item in his bag, haphazard and unseeing. His hands are steady. 

“Anton,” Porter says helplessly and reaches out again. 

Anton breaks before his hand reaches him, curls in on himself, a bag of jerky falling out of his hand with a sad thump. He’s shaking and Porter finishes reaching out, wraps a hand around Anton’s shoulder and pulls him around to face him. Anton buckles forward further, hands coming up and griping Porter’s sweater tight. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, the positioning all wrong, and Porter doesn’t let go. Holds on tight because suddenly Anton’s shaking. 

He’s crying silently, Porter discovers when his arm finally cramps and he has to pull back to readjust. His cheeks look raw, red with tear tracks. He doesn’t open his eyes, just buries his face back in Porter’s shoulder when Porter lets him. 

“We have to go,” Porter says at last. Anton nods against his shoulder and sits up, turns away and wipes at his face. They’ve been here too long, been too loud. Sooner or later the dead will come looking and Porter doesn’t want to give them Dillon. Not even now. Not ever. 

“Yeah,” Anton says. His face is still red when he turns back to finish putting the supplies in his bag but his expression is frozen again. It hurts Porter to look at but he forces himself not to look away. He’s not losing Anton too. 

There are dead in the road, a small trio moving slow but purposeful towards the house. Anton takes Dillon’s bat without hesitation. They’re weak, these shambling corpses, old and decayed enough to be from the start of the end. They kill them without difficulty and move on silently. 

Porter reaches out, when they’ve reached the other side of the town. Takes Anton’s hand. It’s silent but the grip is tight and shaking. 

Anton muffles a cough in his elbow.


End file.
